Former Blue Springs nurse jailed in Mississippi in murder case

Tuesday

Feb 7, 2017 at 3:30 PMFeb 7, 2017 at 3:30 PM

By The Examiner staff

Jamison Townsend, a nurse formerly from Blue Springs, arrived Thursday in Jackson, Mississippi, along with her boyfriend Joshua Garcia and a heavy law enforcement escort as the pair face armed robbery and three counts of capital murder charges.

Townsend, 35, and Garcia, 37, were captured Dec. 21, 2016, in Geary County, Kansas, a few days after they allegedly shot and killed three men at a Jackson pawnshop where the man worked. The two had been considered suspects in other pawn shop burglaries and robberies in the state, and they waived extradition from Kansas. They had been moved from Geary County to an unknown jail before being transported to Mississippi.

According to the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, the couple considered a modern-day “Bonnie and Clyde” each received a $1.5 million bond for the armed robbery and are being held without bond on the capital murder charges.

An affidavit filed by the ATF last month in federal court in Kansas City says that one gun the couple stole in Mississippi was recovered at the Grandview residence of Reno Dillard, whom the ATF believes purchased several guns from the couple.

Townsend had been a registered nurse at St. Mary's Medical Center in Blue Springs starting March 2014, according to her LinkedIn account, but reports say she let her nursing license expire. The Clarion-Ledger said Townsend filed for bankruptcy in 2016 in Mississippi, listing her hometown as Olive Branch, just across the Tennessee-Mississippi border from Memphis.

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